SPICE ISLAND VEGAN - a blog about veganizing Southeast Asian ethnic dishes such as Indonesian dishes I grew up with or any other....

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Viva Las Vegan

We went to Las Vegas, Nevada for a few days to take a short vacation and also to take advantage of what this entertainment capital of the world offers during the economic downtime. Hotels and casinos in Las Vegas are hurting and offer a lot of cheap rooms from Sundays through Thursdays. Much more than they use to be. You can get 70% discount. No kidding! We don't gamble so we were just goofing off for a few days. I am blogging regarding what we found in terms of vegan meals. You can also check these blogs and directories: Vegas Vegan, Vegas Vegetarian, Super Vegan, Yelp, and happycow.

They say that 'What happened in Vegas Stays in Vegas.' Not! I have the NEED to share, especially with vegans. What I found in term of vegan goodies that worth to try(to us) are : 1. Ronald's Donuts 2. Authentic Japanese restaurant with a separate vegetarian menu: Miko's Izakaya, and 3. Red Velvet Cafe.

Let's start with no. 1: Ronald's Donuts. This is not a healthy choice but it is not that we eat donuts everyday. The last time I remember eating donuts were years before(maybe 13 years ago) since most donuts sold commercially contain eggs. As you can see in my picture above, the mouth watering chocolate-glazed-donut with soy custard filling above is VEGAN. We went to happycow.net and read all the great reviews. These vegan donuts are really out of this world: they are soft, squishy, melt in your mouth, and not too sweet. The BEST vegan donuts I ever tasted.

The picture below is a picture of donuts sold in Ronald's that we brought home. The donuts shop is not much(hole-in-the-wall) and owned by a Chinese couple. You'll have to drive to it (in China town area) since it is not on the strip. We bought the donuts to-go and consumed them in other coffee shop (I don't really like Ronald's coffee).

Other than the chocolate-glazed- donut with soy custard filling, I love the jelly-filled and maple glazed ones. There are trays and trays of vegan donuts available to choose from. The apple fritter one was too sweet for me.

Enough of donuts! That's what DH said after 3 days of donuts consuming. Let's talk about no. 2: Miko's Izakaya. Izakaya means a place to have snacks or meals after work (such as a cafe). I found this authentic Japanese restaurant with a separate vegetarian menu. It's not on the strip and you'll need a car to drive a few miles down Las Vegas Blvd. but it was well worth it. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera. The restaurant was a mom-and-pop restaurant owned by a Japanese couple. What was so special was that it was owned by Japanese. Most sushi and Japanese restaurants nowadays are owned by Koreans so the food is Koreanized with NO vegetarian options. Not at Miko's Izakaya! Miko and Greg are Japanese and their chefs are too. You'll find authentic vegan Japanese dishes at their restaurant. They also know what vegan means. Their tempura batter(no egg) was prepared after you ordered them. So it may take a while but it was fresh, crispy, and not oily. We went more than once to this restaurant and ordered vegetable tempura each time. I also ordered vegan Sukiyaki. It was out of this world! It was healthy, steaming hot (served in a flat hot crock), and light.

The last one that we found is Red Velvet Cafe. This place is a few miles from the strip so again, you'll need a car. It has great reviews in happycow.net but we found it just an ordinary, nothing is special in terms of meals (maybe my gourmet expectation is higher). Maybe we need to try them several times before we can find what we like. However, their Vegan Red Velvet Cake was really good. We were served a warm out of the oven red velvet cake with vegan creamy frosting and a fresh strawberry on top. The cake was moist and soft (not bread like). Yum!

4 comments:

I would suggest giving the Red Velvet Cafe another chance. I was trapped in Vegas for 2.5 weeks (WAY too long to "live" in a hotel room on the sleazy strip) with my working husband and we ate there several times. We enjoyed every dish that we tried there; maybe the food is not "gourmet", per se, but it was "good" to "very good/great" food and very satisfying after trying to eat vegan in omni restaurants on the strip ("You're vegan? So, you can eat fish, right?"). We tried a different dessert each time we were there and, while all were yummy, the Red Velvet Cake will always be our favorite!